By Water & Blood

On Eunomius and Aetius

Then, removing the all-praiseworthy Eleusius from Cyzicus, he ordained Eunomius in his place. Eunomius boasted of Aetius the Syrian as his teacher, whose thrice-wretched life and the pursuits he followed both Gregory of Nyssa and Theodore of Mopsuestia taught accurately in what they wrote against Eunomius. This man openly magnified Arius’s blasphemies. For this reason Constantius banished him to some remote place in Phrygia—and this although Constantius himself had somehow turned aside from the straight road and leaned toward another path. For after his father’s death, led by certain men entrusted with the care of his body, he laid down a law forbidding anyone to dare to say that the Son of God is either consubstantial or, indeed, of a different substance; for he said it was not holy to investigate God’s essence; and he ordered that he be called like in all things to the one who begot him. For this very reason he also sent Aetius, who first dared to say that the Son is unlike in all things to the God who begot him, into the aforementioned remote place.

Knowing these things, Eudoxius persuaded Eunomius not to bare his own mind, but for the time being to keep it in hiding and to nurse it in darkness like some clandestine embryo, until they should receive authority from the occasion. Yielding to this, Eunomius offered in Cyzicus a teaching obscured from the many. But laboring to give birth to the impiety, he hinted at it in conversation and wounded the souls of those who heard. Then certain men, burning with divine zeal, hid their zeal and put on the mask of the heresy; and seizing Eunomius’s chamber, they begged him to teach clearly the truth of the doctrine. Led on by that man, and thinking them all of one mind, he vomited the venom he had until then concealed. They again more earnestly entreated him to offer this teaching to the whole people, and to prefer the flock, longing to learn the truth, to the emperor’s favor. Thus again deceived, Eunomius published the blasphemy. They immediately took many of those of the same faith, ran to the camp, and informed Eudoxius of the impiety that had been dared.

Eudoxius was pained to learn that Eunomius had broken the agreed covenants; yet to the accusers he promised to take care, but neglected it entirely, pleading occupations. The accusers of Eunomius, grasping Eudoxius’s aim, reported Eunomius’s blasphemies to the emperor. The emperor first ordered Eudoxius to bring Eunomius and examine the accusation that had been made. When he learned that he was delaying (for the accusers kept coming continually), he threatened to send both into the remote place where Aetius was dwelling. Afraid then, Eudoxius brought Eunomius; and first he reminded him of the advisements he himself had given, then, when he had been openly convicted, deposed him—though he himself wore the same disease; for he feared the imperial threats.

But Eunomius at once proclaimed himself patron of a heresy, and this although he was compelled to dwell in some remote place of Pamphylia. From there the faction of the Eunomians appeared. This man turned theology into technical sophistry, and openly belched out the blasphemies against the Only-begotten and the all-holy Spirit. He said the Son is the first and special creature of the Father; and that the all-holy Spirit was fashioned by the Son before the other works. He also overturned the ordinance of holy baptism handed down from of old by the Lord and the apostles, and legislated openly against it, saying one must not thrice immerse the one baptized, nor make the invocation of the Trinity, but baptize once into the death of Christ. And when baptizing they wet with water as far as the breast, but forbid offering the water to the other parts of the body as unclean. For this reason, when they baptized in a tub, standing the man outside it, they brought his head down into the water once as far as the chest. But when it happened that someone was wounded, his head dashed against the tub, they invented another form of baptism. For stretching the man prone on some platform, and suspending the head outside it, they pour the water, which touches no other part. Some of them also discovered yet another manner of baptism. For making a very long band and consecrating it, they wrap the man with it as far as the nails, beginning from the breast, and then thus offer the pouring of the water. These things those who fled their impiety and joined themselves to the sheep of our Savior and God have reported. And they say something else too is dared among them, which I would not dare to commit to writing; for the mere hearing of the abomination is enough to defile the mind. But whether these things are dared among them or not, I would not affirm; yet I have heard them from men who know their affairs accurately.

Thus raging against the truth, Eunomius strove day by day to increase the disease. For he dared to say that he was ignorant of none of the divine things, but even knew accurately God’s very essence, and had the same knowledge concerning God that God himself has concerning himself. Bacchicly maddened by him into this frenzy, those who shared his corruption dare to say openly that they know God as he knows himself. And he invented certain other things as well, that he might seem to have become the discoverer of novel doctrines. From there the Arian faction was divided in two; and some were called Arians, others Eunomians. The Arians were also surnamed Eudoxians in the time of Eudoxius; for enslaved to empty glory, he strove to impose his own name on those of like mind. The same are also called Exakionites, receiving the designation from the place where they customarily hold their assembly. The Eunomians were also called Aetians, since Eunomius named Aetius his teacher; and the same are also named Troglites or Troglodytes, as holding their synods in hidden houses. For they are exceedingly few in number, all abhorring them because of the shamelessness of the blasphemy. And the greater part of the inhabited world has been freed from their plague, but few and exceedingly countable cities have some of them, and those trying to escape notice.